how can we solve education problems and improve education system

• Yale University
• About Yale Insights
• Privacy Policy
• Accessibility

What Will It Take to Fix Public Education?

The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? Yale Insights talked with former secretary of education John King, now president and CEO of the Education Trust, about the challenges that remain, and the impact of the Trump Administration.

• John B. King President and CEO, The Education Trust

This interview was conducted at the Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit , hosted by Yale SOM’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute on January 30, 2018.

On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush traveled to Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio, to sign the No Child Left Behind Act , a bipartisan bill (Senator Edward Kennedy was a co-sponsor) requiring, among other things, that states test students for proficiency in reading and math and track their progress. Schools that failed to reach their goals would be overhauled or even shut down.

“No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance,” Bush said. “[W]hen we find poor performance, a school will be given time and incentives and resources to correct their problems.… If, however, schools don’t perform, if, however, given the new resources, focused resources, they are unable to solve the problem of not educating their children, there must be real consequences.”

Did No Child Left Behind make a difference? In 2015, Monty Neil of the anti-standardized testing group FairTest argued that while students made progress after the law was passed, it was slower than in the period before the law . And the No Child Left Behind was the focus of criticism for increasing federal control over schools and an emphasis on standardized testing. Its successor, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, shifted power back to the states.

President Barack Obama had his own signature education law: the grant program Race to the Top, originally part of the 2009 stimulus package, which offered funds to states that undertook various reforms, including expanding charter schools, adopting the Common Core curriculum standards, and reforming teacher evaluation.

One study showed that Race to the Top had a dramatic effect on state practices : even states that didn’t receive the grants adopted reforms. But another said that the actual impact on outcomes were limited —and that there were overly high expectations given the scope of the reforms. “Heightened pressure on districts to produce impossible gains from an overly narrow policy agenda has made implementation difficult and often counterproductive,” wrote Elaine Weiss.

Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? And how will the Trump Administration’s policies alter the trajectory? Yale Insights talked with John King, the secretary of education in the latter years of the Obama administration, who is now president and CEO of the nonprofit Education Trust .

Q: The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Do you think we’re getting closer to a consensus on the systematic changes that are needed in education?

Well, I’d say we’ve made progress in some important areas over the last couple of decades. We have highest graduation from high school we’ve ever had as a country. Over the last eight years, we had a million African-American and Latino students go on to college. S0 there are signs of progress.

That said, I’m very worried about the current moment. I think there’s a lack of a clear vision from the current administration, the Trump administration, about what direction education should head. And to the extent that they have an articulate vision, I think it’s actually counter to the interests of low-income students and students of color: a dismantling of federal protection of civil rights, a backing-away from the federal commitment to provide aid for students to go to higher education, and undermining of the public commitment to public schools.

That’s a departure. Over the last couple of decades, we’ve had a bipartisan consensus, whether it was in the Bush administration or the Obama administration, that the job of the Department of Education was to advance education equity and to protect student civil rights. The current administration is walking away from both of those things.

I don’t see that as a partisan issue. That’s about this administration and their priorities. Among the first things they did was to reduce civil rights protections for transgender students, to withdraw civil rights protections for victims of sexual assault on higher education campuses. They proposed a budget that cuts funding for students to go to higher education, eliminates all federal support for teacher professional development, and eliminates federal funding for after-school and summer programs.

Q: Some aspects of education reform have focused on improving performance in traditional public schools and others prioritize options like charter schools and private school vouchers. Do you think both of those are needed?

I distinguish between different types of school choice. The vast majority of kids are in traditional, district public schools. We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to strengthen those schools and ensure their success.

Then I think there is an important role that high-quality public charters can play if there’s rigorous oversight. And if you think about, say, Massachusetts or New York, there’s a high bar to get a charter, there’s rigorous supervision of the academics and operations of the schools and a willingness to close schools that are low-performing. So for me, those high-quality public charters can contribute as a laboratory for innovation and work in partnership with the broader traditional system.

There’s something very different going on in a place like Michigan, where you’ve got a proliferation of low-quality, for-profit charters run by for-profit companies. Their poorly regulated schools are allowed to continue operating that are doing a terrible job, that are taking advantage of students and families. That’s not what we need. And my view is that states that have those kinds of weak charter laws need to change them and move toward something like Massachusetts where there’s a high bar and meaningful accountability for charters.

And then there’s a whole other category of vouchers, which is using public money for students to go to private school, and to my mind, that is a mistake. We ought to have public dollars going to public schools with public accountability.

Q: When you have a state like Michigan in which you’ve got a lot of very poor charter schools, does that hurt a particular type of student more than others?

It has a disproportionate negative effect on low-income students and students of color. Many of those schools are concentrated in high-needs communities and, unfortunately, it’s really presenting a false choice to parents, a mirage, if you will, because they’re told, “Oh, come to this school, it will be different” or, “it will be better,” and actually it’s not. Ed Trust has an office in Michigan, where we have spent a long time trying to make the case to elected officials that they need to strengthen their charter law and charter accountability.

Unfortunately, there’s a very high level of spending by the for-profit charter industry and their supporters on political campaigns. And so far there’s not been a lot of traction to try to strengthen the charter oversight in Michigan. We see that problem in other states around the country, but at the same time we know there are models that work. We know that in Massachusetts, where there’s a high standard for charters, their Boston charters are some of the highest performing charters in the country, getting great outcomes for high-need students. So it’s possible to do chartering well, but it requires thoughtful leadership from governors and legislators.

Q: What’s your view on how students should be evaluated?

Well, I think we have to have a holistic view. The goal ought to be to prepare students for success in college, in careers, and as citizens. So we want students to have the core academic skills, like English and math, but they also need the knowledge that you gain from science and social studies. They need the experiences that they have in art and music and physical education and health. They need that well-rounded education to be prepared to succeed at what’s next after high school. They also need to be prepared to be critical readers, critical thinkers, to debate ideas with their fellow citizens, to advocate for their ideas in a thoughtful, constructive way—all the tools that you need to be a good citizen.

In order to evaluate all of that, you need multiple measures; you can’t just look at test scores. Obviously you want students to gain reading and math skills, but you also need to look at what courses they’re taking. Are they taking a wide range of courses that will prepare them for success? Do they have access to things like AP courses or International Baccalaureate courses that will prepare them for college-level work? Do they acquire socio-emotional skills? Are they able to navigate when they have a conflict with a peer? Are they able to work collaboratively with peers to solve problems?

So you want to look at grades; you want to look at teachers’ perceptions of students. You want to look at the work that they’re doing in class: is it rigorous, is it really preparing them for life after high school? And one of the challenges in education is, to have those kinds of multiple measures, you need very thoughtful leadership at every level—at state level, district level, and at the school level.

Q: How should we be evaluating teachers?

I started out as a high school social studies teacher, and I thought a lot about this question of what’s the right evaluation method. I think the key is this: you want, as a teacher, to get feedback on how you’re doing and what’s happening in your classroom. Too often teaching can feel very isolated, where it’s just you and the students. It’s important to have systems in place where a mentor teacher, a master teacher, a principal, a department chair is in the classroom observing and giving feedback to teachers and having a continuous conversation about how to improve teaching. That should be a part of an evaluation system.

But so too should be how students are doing, whether or not students are making progress. I know folks worry that that could be reduced to just looking at test scores. I think that would be a mistake, but we ought to ask, if you’re a seventh-grade math teacher, if students are making progress in seventh-grade math.

Now, as we look at that, we have to take into consideration the skills the students brought with them to the classroom, the challenges they face outside of the classroom. But I think what you see in schools that are succeeding is that they have a thoughtful, multiple-measures approach to giving teachers feedback on how they’re doing and see it as a tool for continuous improvement to ensure that everybody is constantly learning.

Q: Do you think the core issue in improving schools is funding? Or are there separate systemic issues that need to be solved?

It varies a lot state to state, but the Education Trust has done extensive analysis of school spending, and what we see is that on average, districts serving low-income students are spending significantly less than more affluent districts across the country, about $1,200 less per student. And in some states, that can be $3,000 less, $5,000 less, $10,000 less per student for the highest-needs kids. We also see a gap around funding for communities that serve large numbers of students of color. Actually, the average gap nationally is larger for districts serving large numbers of students of color—it’s about $2,000 less than those districts that serve fewer students of color.

So we do have a gap in terms of resources coming in, but it’s not just about money; it’s also how you use the money. And we know that, sadly, in many places, the dollars aren’t getting to the highest needs, even within a district. And then once they get to the school level, the question is, are they being spent on teachers and teacher professional development, and things that are going to serve students directly, or are they being spent on central office needs that actually aren’t serving students? So we’ve got to make sure they have more resources for the highest-needs kids, but we’ve also got to make sure that the resources are well-used.

Q: Does it make it significantly harder that so much of the decisions are made on the local level or the state level when you’re trying to create a change across the country?

It’s certainly a challenge. You want to try to balance local leadership with common goals. And you want, as a country, to be able to say, look, you may choose different books to read in class, you may choose different experiments to do in science, but we need all students to have the fundamental skills that they’ll need for success in college and careers and we ought to all be able to agree that all schools should be focused on those skills. Even that can be politically challenging.

We also know that from a funding standpoint, having funding decided mostly on the local level can actually create greater inequality, particularly when you’re relying on local property taxes. You’ll have a very wealthy community that’s spending dramatically more than a neighboring community that has many more low-income families. One of the ways to get around that is to have the state or the federal government account for a larger share of funding so that you can have an equalizing role. That was the original goal of Title I funding at the federal level—to try to get resources to the highest-needs kids.

The other challenge we see is around race and income diversity or isolation. And sadly, in many states, Connecticut included, you have very sharp divisions along race and class lines between districts and so kids may go to school and never see someone different from them. That is a significant problem. We know there are places that are trying to solve that. Hartford, Connecticut, for example, has, because of a court decision, a very extensive effort to get kids from Hartford to go out to suburban schools and suburban kids to come to Hartford schools. And they’ve designed programs that will attract folks across community lines, programs that focus on Montessori or art or early college programs. We can do better, but we need leadership around that.

Q: Are you seeing concrete results from programs like Hartford?

What we know is that low-income students who have the opportunity to go to schools that serve a mixed-income population do better academically. And we also know that all students in schools that are socioeconomically and racially diverse gain additional skills outside the purely academic skills around how to work with peers, cross-racial understanding, empathy.

So, yes, we are seeing those results. The sad thing is, it’s not fast enough; it’s not happening at enough places. We in the Obama administration had proposed a $120 million grant program to school diversity initiatives around the country. We couldn’t get Congress to fund it. We had a small planning grant program that we created at the Education Department that was one of the first things the Trump administration undid when they came into office. So we’re going backwards at the federal level, but there’s a lot of energy around school diversity initiatives at the community level. And that’s where we’re seeing progress around the country.

Q: Do you think the education system should aim to send as many people to college as possible? Should we think of it as being necessary for everyone or should we find ways to prepare students for a wider range of careers?

What’s clear is that everybody going into the 21st-century economy needs some level of post-secondary training. That may be a four-year degree. It could also be a two-year community college degree, or it could be some meaningful career credential that actually leads to a job that provides a family-sustaining wage. But there are very, very few jobs that are going to provide that family-sustaining wage that don’t require some level of post-secondary training. My view is, we have a public responsibility to make sure folks have access to those post-secondary training opportunities. That’s why the Pell Grant program is so important, because it provides funding for low-income students to be able to pursue higher education.

We also need to do a better job in the connection between high school and post-secondary opportunities. A lot of times students leave high school unclear on what they’re going to do and where they should go. We can do a much better job having students have college experiences while in high school and then prepare them to transition into meaningful post-secondary career training.

Q: What’s the one policy change you would made to help students of color and students in poverty, if you had to choose one thing?

There’s no one single silver bullet for sure, but one of the highest return investments we know we can make as a country is in early learning. We know, for example, that high quality pre-K can have an eight-to-one, nine-to-one return on investment. President Obama proposed something called Preschool for All, which would have gotten us toward universal access to quality pre-K for low- and middle-income four-year olds. That’s something we ought to do because if we can give kids a good foundation, that puts them in a better place to succeed in K-12 and to go on to college.

But I have a long list of policy changes I would want to make. I think, fundamentally, we haven’t made that commitment as a country, at the federal level, state level, or local level, to ensuring equitable opportunity for low-income students and students of color. And if we made that commitment, then there’s a series of policy changes that would flow from that.

Interviewed and edited by Ben Mattison.

Visit edtrust.org to learn more about the Education Trust. Follow John B. King Jr. on Twitter: @JohnBKing .

• Politics and Policy

The Ongoing Challenges, and Possible Solutions, to Improving Educational Equity

• Share article

Schools across the country were already facing major equity challenges before the pandemic, but the disruptions it caused exacerbated them.

After students came back to school buildings after more than a year of hybrid schooling, districts were dealing with discipline challenges and re-segregating schools. In a national EdWeek Research Center survey from October, 65 percent of the 824 teachers, and school and district leaders surveyed said they were more concerned now than before the pandemic about closing academic opportunity gaps that impact learning for students of different races, socioeconomic levels, disability categories, and English-learner statuses.

But educators trying to prioritize equity have an uphill battle to overcome these challenges, especially in the face of legislation and school policies attempting to fight equity initiatives across the country.

The pandemic and the 2020 murder of George Floyd drove many districts to recognize longstanding racial disparities in academics, discipline, and access to resources and commit to addressing them. But in 2021, a backlash to such equity initiatives accelerated, and has now resulted in 18 states passing laws restricting lessons on race and racism, and many also passing laws restricting the rights and well-being of LGBTQ students.

This slew of Republican-driven legislation presents a new hurdle for districts looking to address racial and other inequities in public schools.

During an Education Week K-12 Essentials forum last week, journalists, educators, and researchers talked about these challenges, and possible solutions to improving equity in education.

Takeru Nagayoshi, who was the Massachusetts teacher of the year in 2020, and one of the speakers at the forum, said he never felt represented as a gay, Asian kid in public school until he read about the Stonewall Riots, the Civil Rights Movement, and the full history of marginalized groups working together to change systems of oppression.

“Those are the learning experiences that inspired me to be a teacher and to commit to a life of making our country better for everyone,” he said.

“Our students really benefit the most when they learn about themselves and the world that they’re in. They’re in a safe space with teachers who provide them with an honest education and accurate history.”

Here are some takeaways from the discussion:

Schools are still heavily segregated

Almost 70 years after the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, most students attend schools where they see a majority of other students of their racial demographics .

Black students, who accounted for 15 percent of public school enrollment in 2019, attended schools where Black students made up an average of 47 percent of enrollment, according to a UCLA report.

They attended schools with a combined Black and Latinx enrollment averaging 67 percent, while Latinx students attended schools with a combined Black and Latinx enrollment averaging 66 percent.

Overall, the proportion of schools where the majority of students are not white increased from 14.8 percent of schools in 2003 to 18.2 percent in 2016.

“Predominantly minority schools [get] fewer resources, and that’s one problem, but there’s another problem too, and it’s a sort of a problem for democracy,” said John Borkowski, education lawyer at Husch Blackwell.

“I think it’s much better for a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy, when people have opportunities to interact with one another, to learn together, you know, and you see all of the problems we’ve had in recent years with the rising of white supremacy, and white supremacist groups.”

School discipline issues were exacerbated because of student trauma

In the absence of national data on school discipline, anecdotal evidence and expert interviews suggest that suspensions—both in and out of school—and expulsions, declined when students went remote.

In 2021, the number of incidents increased again when most students were back in school buildings, but were still lower than pre-pandemic levels , according to research by Richard Welsh, an associate professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education.

But forum attendees, who were mostly district and school leaders as well as teachers, disagreed, with 66 percent saying that the pandemic made school incidents warranting discipline worse. That’s likely because of heightened student trauma from the pandemic. Eighty-three percent of forum attendees who responded to a spot survey said they had noticed an increase in behavioral issues since resuming in-person school.

Restorative justice in education is gaining popularity

One reason Welsh thought discipline incidents did not yet surpass pre-pandemic levels despite heightened student trauma is the adoption of restorative justice practices, which focus on conflict resolution, understanding the causes of students’ disruptive behavior, and addressing the reason behind it instead of handing out punishments.

Kansas City Public Schools is one example of a district that has had improvement with restorative justice, with about two thirds of the district’s 35 schools seeing a decrease in suspensions and expulsions in 2021 compared with 2019.

Forum attendees echoed the need for or success of restorative justice, with 36 percent of those who answered a poll within the forum saying restorative justice works in their district or school, and 27 percent saying they wished their district would implement some of its tenets.

However, 12 percent of poll respondents also said that restorative justice had not worked for them. Racial disparities in school discipline also still persist, despite restorative justice being implemented, which indicates that those practices might not be ideal for addressing the over-disciplining of Black, Latinx, and other historically marginalized students.

Sign Up for The Savvy Principal

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

current events conversation

What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education

An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math. Teenagers told us what’s working and what’s not in the American education system.

By The Learning Network

Earlier this month, the Program for International Student Assessment announced that the performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000 . Other recent studies revealed that two-thirds of American children were not proficient readers , and that the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening.

We asked students to weigh in on these findings and to tell us their suggestions for how they would improve the American education system.

Our prompt received nearly 300 comments. This was clearly a subject that many teenagers were passionate about. They offered a variety of suggestions on how they felt schools could be improved to better teach and prepare students for life after graduation.

While we usually highlight three of our most popular writing prompts in our Current Events Conversation , this week we are only rounding up comments for this one prompt so we can honor the many students who wrote in.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Transforming education systems: Why, what, and how

• Download the full policy brief
• Download the executive summary
• Baixe o resumo executivo
• Baixar o resumo da política

تنزيل موجز السياسة

تنزيل الملخص التنفيذي

• Descargar el PDF en Español
• Descargar el resumen de políticas

Subscribe to the Center for Universal Education Bulletin

Rebecca winthrop and rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development the hon. minister david sengeh the hon. minister david sengeh minister of education and chief innovation officer - government of sierra leone, chief innovation officer - directorate of science, technology and innovation in sierra leone.

June 23, 2022

Today, the topic of education system transformation is front of mind for many leaders. Ministers of education around the world are seeking to build back better as they emerge from COVID-19-school closures to a new normal of living with a pandemic. The U.N. secretary general is convening the Transforming Education Summit (TES) at this year’s general assembly meeting (United Nations, n.d.). Students around the world continue to demand transformation on climate and not finding voice to do this through their schools are regularly leaving class to test out their civic action skills.      

It is with this moment in mind that we have developed this shared vision of education system transformation. Collectively we offer insights on transformation from the perspective of a global think tank and a national government: the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings brings years of global research on education change and transformation, and the Ministry of Education of Sierra Leone brings on-the-ground lessons from designing and implementing system-wide educational rebuilding.   

This brief is for any education leader or stakeholder who is interested in charting a transformation journey in their country or education jurisdiction such as a state or district. It is also for civil society organizations, funders, researchers, and anyone interested in the topic of national development through education. In it, we answer the following three questions and argue for a participatory approach to transformation:  

• Why is education system transformation urgent now? We argue that the world is at an inflection point. Climate change, the changing nature of work, increasing conflict and authoritarianism together with the urgency of COVID recovery has made the transformation agenda more critical than ever. 
• What is education system transformation? We argue that education system transformation must entail a fresh review of the goals of your system – are they meeting the moment that we are in, are they tackling inequality and building resilience for a changing world, are they fully context aware, are they owned broadly across society – and then fundamentally positioning all components of your education system to coherently contribute to this shared purpose.  
• How can education system transformation advance in your country or jurisdiction? We argue that three steps are crucial: Purpose (developing a broadly shared vision and purpose), Pedagogy (redesigning the pedagogical core), and Position (positioning and aligning all components of the system to support the pedagogical core and purpose). Deep engagement of educators, families, communities, students, ministry staff, and partners is essential across each of these “3 P” steps.    

Related Content

Rebecca Winthrop, Adam Barton, Mahsa Ershadi, Lauren Ziegler

September 30, 2021

Jenny Perlman Robinson, Molly Curtiss Wyss, Patrick Hannahan

July 7, 2021

Emiliana Vegas, Rebecca Winthrop

September 8, 2020

Our aim is not to provide “the answer” — we are also on a journey and continually learning about what it takes to transform systems — but to help others interested in pursuing system transformation benefit from our collective reflections to date. The goal is to complement and put in perspective — not replace — detailed guidance from other actors on education sector on system strengthening, reform, and redesign. In essence, we want to broaden the conversation and debate.

Download the full policy brief»

Download the executive summary»

Baixe o resumo executivo»

Baixar o resumo da política»

Descargar el PDF en Español»

Descargar el resumen de políticas»

Global Education

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Mary Burns, Rebecca Winthrop, Michael Trucano, Natasha Luther

October 15, 2024

Anusha Bharadwaj

October 14, 2024

Rachel Dyl, Ghulam Omar Qargha

October 4, 2024

Seven Solutions for Education Inequality

Giving compass' take:.

•  Jermeelah Martin shares seven solutions that can reduce and help to eliminate education inequality in the United States.
• What role are you ready to take on to address education inequality? What does education inequality look like in your community?
• Read about comprehensive strategies for promoting educational equity .

What is Giving Compass?

We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us .

Systemic issues in funding drives education inequality and has detrimental effects primarily on low-income Black and Brown students. These students receive lower quality of education which is reflected through less qualified teachers,not enough books, technologies and special support like counselors and disability services. The lack of access to fair, quality education creates the broader income and wealth gaps in the U.S. Black and brown students face more hurdles to going to college and will be three times more likely to experience poverty as a American with only a highschool degree than an American with a college degree. Income inequality worsens the opportunity for building wealth for Black and Brown families because home and asset ownership will be more difficult to attain.

• Concretely, the first solution would be to reduce class distinctions among students by doing away with the property tax as a primary funding source. This is a significant driver for education inequality because low-income students, by default, will receive less. Instead, the state government should create more significant initiatives and budgets for equitable funding.
• Stop the expansion of charter and private schools as it is not affordable for all students and creates segregation.
• Deprioritize test based funding because it discriminates against disadvantaged students.
• Support teachers financially, as in offering higher salaries and benefits for teachers to improve retention.
• Invest more resources for support in low-income, underfunded schools such as, increased special education specialists and counselors.
• Dismantle the school to prison pipeline for students by adopting more restorative justice efforts and fewer funds for cops in schools. This will create more funds for education justice initiatives and work to end the over policing of minority students.
• More broadly, supporting efforts to dismantle the influence of capitalism in our social sector and supporting an economy that taxes the wealthy at a higher rate will allow for adequate support and funding of public sectors like public education and support for low-income families.

Read the full article about solutions for education inequality  by Jermeelah Martin at United for a Fair Economy.

More Articles

Our education funding system is broken. we can fix it., learning policy institute, nov 21, 2022, the funding gap between charter schools and traditional public schools, may 22, 2019.

Become a newsletter subscriber to stay up-to-date on the latest Giving Compass news.

Donate to Giving Compass to help us guide donors toward practices that advance equity.

Partnerships

© 2024 Giving Compass Network

A 501(c)(3) organization. EIN: 85-1311683

Advertisement

How can education systems improve? A systematic literature review

• Published: 07 April 2022
• Volume 24 , pages 479–499, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Ignacio Barrenechea   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4673-3862 1 ,
• Jason Beech 2 &
• Axel Rivas 1  

2665 Accesses

13 Citations

11 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Understanding what contributes to improving a system will help us tackle the problems in education systems that usually fail disproportionately in providing quality education for all, especially for the most disadvantage sectors of the population. This paper presents the results of a qualitative systematic literature review aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of what education research can say about the factors that promote education systems’ improvement. This literature is emerging as a topic of empirical research that merges comparative education and school effectiveness studies as standardized assessments make it possible to compare results across systems and time. To examine and synthesize the papers included in this review we followed a thematic analysis approach. We identify, analyze, and report patterns in the papers included in this systematic review. From the coding process, four drivers for system improvement emerged: (1) system-wide approaches; (2) human capital; (3) governance and macro–micro level bridges; and (4) availability of resources.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Background, Aims, and Theories of the Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education

Background, Aims and Theories of the Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education

Comparing Systems

For example, Improving schools https://journals.sagepub.com/aims-scope/IMP .

School effectiveness and school improvement https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=nses20 .

For example, International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement https://www.icsei.net/about-icsei/ .

Our search countries were Albania, Qatar, Estonia, Portugal, Poland, Peru, Ireland, Russia, Israel, and Slovenia.

Addey, C., Sellar, S., Steiner-Khamsi, G., Lingard, B., & Verger, A. (2017). The rise of international large-scale assessments and rationales for participation.  Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education ,  47 (3), 434–452.

Alves, F. (2008). Educational policies and school performance in the Brazilian capitals of states. Cadernos De Pesquisa, 38 (34), 413–440.

Article   Google Scholar  

Arnove, R. F. (2015). Comparative education: Dimensions and trends: A contribution to the 50th anniversary celebration of the Japan comparative education society. Comparative Education, 2015 (50), 168–177.

Auld, E., & Morris, P. (2016). PISA, policy and persuasion: Translating complex conditions into education' best practice'. Comparative Education , 52 (2), 202–229. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2016.1143278 .

Barber, M., Kihn, P., & Moffit, A. (2011). Deliverology 101: A field guide for educational leaders . Corwin Press.

Barber, M., & Mourshed, M. (2007). How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top . McKinsey & Company.

Becker, G. S. (1976). The economic approach to human behavior . University of Chicago Press.

Beech, J., & Lista, E. (2012). Flowing Discourses and Border Crossing: The Slogan of ‘Respect for Diversity’in Latin America. In World Yearbook of Education 2012 (pp. 391–410). Routledge.

Beech, J., & Rizvi, F. (2017). Revisiting Jullien in an era of globalisation. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education , 47 (3), 374–387.

Betts, J. R., Zau, A., & King, K. (2005). From blueprint to reality: San Diego’s education reforms . Public Policy Institute of California.

Bin Mahfooz, S., & Hovde, K. (2010). Successful education reform: lessons from Poland.  ECA Knowledge Brief ,  34 (11).

Boman, B. (2020). What makes Estonia and Singapore so good? Globalisation, Societies and Education, 18 (2), 181–193.

Booth, A., Papaioannou, D., & Sutton, A. (2012). Systematic approaches to a successful literature review . Sage Publications.

Campbell, C. (2020). Educational equity in Canada: The case of Ontario’s strategies and actions to advance excellence and equity for students. School Leadership & Management , 1–20.

Carvalho, L. M., Costa, E., & Gonçalves, C. (2017). Fifteen years looking at the mirror: On the presence of PISA in education policy processes (Portugal, 2000–2016). European Journal of Education, 52 (2), 154–166.

Coffield, F. (2012). Why the McKinsey reports will not improve school systems. Journal of Education Policy, 27 (1), 131–149.

Coffield, F., & Williamson, B. (2011). From Exam Factories to Communities of Discovery. Adults Learning, 23 (2), 24–25.

Cogan, L. S., Schmidt, W. H., & Wiley, D. E. (2001). Who takes what math and in which track? Using TIMSS to characterize US students’ eighth-grade mathematics learning opportunities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23 (4), 323–341.

Cohen, D. K., & Spillane, J. P. (1992). Chapter 1: Policy and practice: The relations between governance and instruction. Review of research in education , 18 (1), 3–49. American Educational Research Association.

Cox, C. (2004). Innovation and reform to improve the quality of primary education: Chile. Unpublished manuscript, Ministry of Education, Santiago .

Crato, N. (2021). Setting up the Scene: Lessons Learned from PISA 2018 Statistics and Other International Student Assessments. In  Improving a Country’s Education  (pp. 1–24). Springer, Cham.

Cueto, S., Miranda, A., León, J., & Vásquez, M. C. (2016b). Education trajectories: From early childhood to early adulthood in Peru.

Cueto, S., León, J., & Muñoz, I. G. (2016a). Conductas, estrategias y rendimiento en lectura en PISA: análisis para el Perú. REICE: Revista Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación , 14 (3), 5–31.

David, J. L., & Talbert, J. E. (2012). Turning around a high-poverty school district: Learning from Sanger Unified’s success. SH Cowell Foundation .

Deaton, A. (2020). Randomization in the tropics revisited: A theme and eleven variations . Working Paper No. 27600. National Bureau Of Economic Research.

Dhaliwal, I., Duflo, E., Glennerster, R., & Tulloch, C. (2013). Comparative costeffectiveness analysis to inform policy in developing countries: a general framework with applications for education. Education policy in developing countries, 17 , 285–338.

Dinham, S., Crowther, F., Robinson, V. M., McNaughton, S., & Timperley, H. (2011). Building capacity in a self‐managing schooling system: The New Zealand experience. Journal of Educational Administration .

Dykstra, T. (2006). High performance and success in education in Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands . National Center on Education and the Economy.

Edwards, D. B., Jr. (2018). Global education policy, impact evaluations, and alternatives: The political economy of knowledge production . Springer.

Elmore, R. (2007). Educational improvement in Victoria. Unpublished internal communication.

Elmore, R. F., & Burney, D. (1998). Continuous improvement in community district# 2 . University of Pittsburgh, HPLC Project, Learning Research, and Development Center.

Fazlagić, J., & Erkol, A. (2015). Knowledge mobilisation in the Polish education system. Journal of Education for Teaching, 41 (5), 541–554.

Feniger, Y., & Lefstein, A. (2014). How not to reason with PISA data: An ironic investigation. Journal of Education Policy, 29 (6), 845–855.

Fernandez Cano, A. (2016). A methodological critique of the PISA evaluations. Relieve, 22 (1), 1–16. Disponible en: https://www.uv.es/RELIEVE/v22n1/RELIEVEv22n1_M15eng.pdf .

Fleisch, B. (2016). System-wide improvement at the instructional core: Changing reading teaching in South Africa. Journal of Educational Change, 17 (4), 437–451.

Fuhrman, S. (1993). Designing coherent education policy: Improving the system . Jossey-Bass.

Fullan, M., & Rincon-Gallardo, S. (2016). Developing high-quality public education in Canada: The case of Ontario. In Global Education Reform (pp. 169–193). Routledge.

Fullan, M. (2016). The elusive nature of whole system improvement in education. Journal of Educational Change, 17 (4), 539–544.

Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory . Aldine.

Gómez, R. L., & Suárez, A. M. (2020). Do inquiry-based teaching and school climate influence science achievement and critical thinking? Evidence from PISA 2015. International Journal of STEM Education, 7 (1), 1–11.

Graczewski, C., Knudson, J., & Holtzman, D. J. (2009). Instructional leadership in practice: What does it look like, and what influence does it have? Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 14 (1), 72–96.

Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. H. (2011). Collaborative leadership and school improvement: Understanding the impact on school capacity and student learning. In International handbook of leadership for learning (pp. 469–485). Springer.

Hanushek, E. A. & Woessmann, L. (2007). Calidad de la educación y crecimiento económico . En Documento N° 39. PREAL.

Harris, A. (2010). Leading system transformation. School Leadership and Management, 30 (3), 197–207.

Harris, A., & Jones, M. S. (2017). Professional learning communities: A strategy for school and system improvement? Wales Journal of Education, 19 (1), 16–38.

Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69 (1), 3–19.

Hopfenbeck, T. N., Lenkeit, J., El Masri, Y., Cantrell, K., Ryan, J., & Baird, J. A. (2018). Lessons learned from PISA: A systematic review of peer-reviewed articles on the programme for international student assessment. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 62 (3), 333–353.

Hopkins, D. (2007). Every school a great school: Realizing the potential of system leadership . McGraw-Hill Education.

Hopkins, D., Ahtaridou, E., Matthews, P., Posner, C., & Toledo, F. D. (2007). An analysis of the Mexican school system in light of PISA 2006 . London Centre for Leadership in Learning, University of London.

Hussen, T. (1994). Problems of Educational Reforms in a Changing Society. En A. Yogev y V. Rust (Eds.), International perspectives on education and society . Jai Press.

Jakubowski, M. (2015). Opening up opportunities: Education reforms in Poland. IBS Policy Paper, 1 , 2015.

Google Scholar  

Jessop, B. (1998). The narrative of enterprise and the enterprise of narrative: Place marketing and the entrepreneurial city. En The entrepreneurial city: Geographies of politics, regime and representation . John Wiley.

Lapping, M. B. (2004). Education in a restoration democracy: The case of Estonia. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 6 (2), 101–115.

Levin, B. (2012). System-wide improvement in education. Education Policy Series, 13 , 1–38.

Lindblad, S., Pettersson, D., & Popkewitz, T. S. (2015). International comparisons of school results: A systematic review of research on large-scale assessments in education . Swedish Research Council.

LLECE-UNESCO. (2013). Análisis del clima escolar: ¿Poderoso factor que explica el aprendizaje en América Latina y el Caribe? OREALC-UNESCO Santiago.

Masino, S., & Niño-Zarazúa, M. (2016). What works to improve the quality of student learning in developing countries? International Journal of Educational Development, 48 , 53–65.

McAleavy, T., & Elwick, A. (2016). School improvement in London: A global perspective . Education Development Trust. Highbridge House, 16–18 Duke Street, Reading Berkshire, England RG1 4RU, United Kingdom.

McEwan, P. J. (2015). Improving learning in primary schools of developing countries: A meta-analysis of randomized experiments. Review of Educational Research, 85 (3), 353–394.

Mikk, J. (2015). Explaining the difference between PISA 2009 reading scores in Finland and Estonia. Educational Research and Evaluation, 21 (4), 324–342.

Morris, P. (2015). Comparative education, PISA, politics and educational reform: A cautionary note. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education , 45 (3), 470–474.

Morris, P. (1996). Asia’s four little tigers: A comparison of the role of education in their development. Comparative Education, 32 (1), 95–110.

Mourshed, M., Chijioke, C., & Barber, M. (2010). How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better. McKinsey & Company (En español: Mourshed, M., Chijioke, C. y Barber, M. (2012). Cómo continúan mejorando los sistemas educativos de mayor progreso en el mundo. Documento N° 61. PREAL).

Murnane, R. J., & Ganimian, A. (2014). Improving educational outcomes in developing countries: Lessons from rigorous impact evaluations . Working Paper No. 20284. NBER.

Murphy, J., & Hallinger, P. (1988). Characteristics of instructionally effective school districts. The Journal of Educational Research, 81 (3), 175–181.

Nguyen, X. T., Roemmele, D., & Peel, D. (2013). Education reform in Vietnam: A critical analysis of inclusion and management discourses. Journal of Asian Critical Education , 2 .

Noah, H. J., & Eckstein, M. A. (1969). Toward a science of comparative education . Macmillan.

Nóvoa, A., & Yariv-Mashal, T. (2014). Comparative research in education: A model of governance or a historical journey. En T. Fenwick, E. Mangez y J. Ozga (Eds.), World yearbook of education 2014: Governing knowledge comparison, knowledge-based technologies and expertise in the regulation of education. Routledge.

O’Day, J. A., & Smith, M. S. (2016). Quality and equality in American education: Systemic problems, systemic solutions. In The dynamics of opportunity in America (pp. 297–358). Springer.

O’Day, J., & Quick, H. E. (2009). Assessing instructional reform in San Diego: A theory-based approach. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 14 (1), 1–16.

OECD. (2019).  PISA 2018 assessment and analytical framework . PISA, OECD Publishing.  https://doi.org/10.1787/b25efab8-en .

Osborne, D., & Gaebler, T. (1992). Reinventing government . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Osmond-Johnson, P., & Campbell, C. (2018). Transforming an education system through professional learning: Developing educational change at scale in Ontario. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 17 (3), 241–256.

Pang, N. S. K., & Miao, Z. (2017). The roles of teacher leadership in Shanghai education success. Bulgarian Comparative Education Society .

Paterson, G. D. (2019). Improving student learning through professional learning communities: Employing a system-wide approach. Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education/Revue canadienne des jeunes chercheures et chercheurs en éducation , 10 (1).

Porter, C. (2002). Measuring the content of instruction: Uses in research and practice. In 2002 Presidential address . University of Wisconsin.

Quick, H. E., Holtzman, D. J., & Chaney, K. R. (2009). Professional development and instructional practice: Conceptions and evidence of effectiveness. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 14 (1), 45–71.

Rindermann, H., & Ceci, S. J. (2009). Educational policy and country outcomes in international cognitive competence studies. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4 (6), 551–568.

Rivas, A. (2015). América Latina después de PISA: Lecciones aprendidas sobre la educación en siete países . CIPPEC, Natura e Instituto Natura.

Rivas, A. et al. (2020): Las llaves de la educación. Estudio comparado sobre la mejora de los sistemas educativos subnacionales en América Latina, Fundación Santillana, Madrid.

Rivas, A., & Scasso, M. G. (2021). Low stakes, high risks: The problem of intertemporal validity of PISA in Latin America. Journal of Education Policy, 36 (2), 279–302.

Rizvi, F., & Beech, J. (2017). Global mobilities and the possibilities of a cosmopolitan curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 47 (1), 125–134.

Sahlberg, P. (2011). The fourth way of Finland. Journal of Educational Change, 12 (2), 173–185.

Sam, C., & Riggan, M. (2013). Building district capacity for system-wide instructional improvement in Cincinnati public schools. Working Paper. GE Foundation" Developing Futures "™ in Education Evaluation Series. Consortium for Policy Research in Education .

Schleicher, A. (2012). Preparing teachers and developing school leaders for the 21st century: Lessons from around the world . OECD Publishing. 2, rue Andre Pascal, F-75775 Paris Cedex 16, France.

Schleicher, A. (2018). How to build a 21st-century school system . OECD Publishing.

Schmidt, W. H., & Prawat, R. S. (2006). Curriculum coherence and national control of education: Issue or non-issue? Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38 (6), 641–658.

Schmidt, W. H., Wang, H. C., & McKnight, C. C. (2005). Curriculum coherence: An examination of US mathematics and science content standards from an international perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37 , 525–559.

Schneider, B. R., Estarellas, P. C., & Bruns, B. (2019). The politics of transforming education in Ecuador: Confrontation and continuity, 2006–2017. Comparative Education Review, 63 (2), 259–280.

Sellar, S., & Lingard, B. (2013). The OECD and the expansion of PISA: New global modes of governance in education. British Educational Research Journal, 40 (6), 917–936.

Snilstveit, B., Stevenson, J., Menon, R., Phillips, D., Gallagher, E., Geleen, M., et al. (2016). The impact of education programmes on learning and school participation in low-and middle-income countries.

Snipes, J., Doolittle, F., & Herlihy, C. (2002). Foundations for success: Case studies of how urban school systems improve student achievement. Council of the Great City Schools.

Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104 , 333–339.

Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2019a). Randomized controlled trials: League leader in the hierarchy of evidence?. En R. Gorur y S. Sellar (Eds.), World yearbook of education 2019a: Comparative methodology in the era of big data and global networks . Routledge.

Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2019b). Conclusions: What policy-makers do with PISA. Understanding PISA’s attractiveness: Critical analyses in comparative policy studies , 233.

Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2016). New directions in policy borrowing research. Asia Pacific Education Review, 17 (3), 381–390.

Tan, C. (2019). Parental responses to education reform in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Asia Pacific Education Review, 20 (1), 91–99.

Trace, A. (1961) What Ivan knows that Johnny doesn’t: A comparison of Soviet and American school programs. Harper.

Tucker, M. (Ed.). (2011). Surpassing Shanghai. An agenda for American education built on the world’s leading systems . Harvard Education Press.

Tyack, D. B. and Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia . Harvard University Press.

Valverde, G. A. (2014). Educational quality: global politics, comparative inquiry, and opportunities to learn. Comparative Education Review, 58 (4), 575–589.

Verger, A., Novelli, M., & Altinyelken, H. K. (2012). Global education policy and international development: An introductory framework.  Global education policy and international development: New agendas, issues and policies , 3–32.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge . Harvard Business Press.

Zavadsky, H. (2016). Bringing effective instructional practice to scale in American schools: Lessons from the Long Beach Unified School District. Journal of Educational Change, 17 (4), 505–527.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Universidad de San Andrés, Victoria, Argentina

Ignacio Barrenechea & Axel Rivas

Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Jason Beech

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ignacio Barrenechea .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Barrenechea, I., Beech, J. & Rivas, A. How can education systems improve? A systematic literature review. J Educ Change 24 , 479–499 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09453-7

Download citation

Accepted : 03 March 2022

Published : 07 April 2022

Issue Date : September 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09453-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Educational change
• System-wide improvement
• Comparative education
• International education
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Education and inequality in 2021: how to change the system

Research Associate at the University of Geneva's department of Education and Psychology; Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva's La Grande Boissière, Université de Genève

Disclosure statement

Conrad Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

AUF (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie) provides funding as a member of The Conversation FR.

View all partners

Since its earliest traces, at least 5,000 years ago , formal education – meaning an education centred on literacy and numeracy – has always been highly selective. Ancient Egyptian priest schools and schools for scribes in Sumeria were only open to the children of the clergy or future monarchs.

Later on, the wealthy would use private tutors, such as the Sophists of Athens (500 - 400 BCE). Ancient Greek schools, such as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum , were restricted to a small elite group. Formal education was reserved for male children who were wealthy, able, and privileged.

Through time, even after learning societies began to flourish, it was still an education for some and not for everybody.

In the 1800s Black people were denied access to quality education in the United States. In European colonies, education was used to strip people of their cultural heritage and relegate them to a future of menial labour.

Education has always been less accessible to women than men. Even today, over 130 million girls are still out of school. Although the difference between girls and boys is lessening, the disparity disadvantaging girls persists . From a socioeconomic perspective, in many countries, private schools continue to grow alongside compulsory state schools, offering a different style of education, sometimes at a very high price.

Today, progress to attain the dream of universal access to education is slow. UNESCO’s Education for All and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 , which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, are still far from materialising: roughly 260 million children are still not in school . The COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation worse: remote learning is inaccessible to roughly 500 million students . Estimates are that over 200 million children will still be out of school by 2030 .

In my study “Education and Elitism” , the overarching question that runs through the book is about the future of education worldwide: What are the prospects for the future? Are we facing an even more enclaved, pauperised majority while a tiny minority become more powerful and wealthy?

Certain paths could open up. On the one hand, places in selective institutions could become even more difficult to access while private education strips ahead of national standards. On the other hand, changes might make education more inclusive: this would include scholarships, cheaper private education, more robust state systems and deep assessment reform.

Prospects for the future

Scholarship programmes: These allow the brightest and poorest access to transformative learning ecosystems . However, this contributes to a brain drain and does not develop the local educational sector , particularly in Africa.

Cheaper private education: A movement of accessible private schools is growing . This allows more children to access some of the value-added features of such systems – more curriculum flexibility, smaller class sizes, more individual student tracking. However, there are reports that this is widening social divides , as the public system isn’t improving fast enough to keep up.

More robust state systems: UNESCO estimates that it would cost a total of US$340 billion each year to achieve universal pre-primary, primary, and secondary education in low- and lower-middle-income countries by 2030. The average annual per-student spending for quality primary education in a low-income country is predicted to be US$197 in 2030. This creates an estimated annual gap of US$39 billion between 2015 and 2030. Financing this gap calls for action from private sector donors, philanthropists, and international financial institutions.

Online learning: The COVID-19 lockdown has brought inequalities to the surface. However, the rise of online learning worldwide has been phenomenal. This opens up the potential to widen access to learning socioeconomically and, if delivered by skilled facilitators, academically . There is a problem, though: online instruction lacks the emotional quantum that face-to-face learning creates. Because of this, motivation levels and persistence tend to be low in online learning environments . And importantly, in many countries, many students still don’t have access to the internet.

A way forward: reforming the system

Perhaps the most substantive movement to reduce inequalities would not be to accelerate access to a broken system but to reform the system itself .

It is time to look further than narrow academic metrics as the only way of describing young people’s competences. The whole educational system across high schools, in every country, needs to change dramatically. Assessment models should recognise and nurture more varied and multiple competences, in particular, attitudes, skills and types of knowledge beyond those concentrated in constructs that are favoured by socioeconomic background, such as literacy and numeracy .

Read more: Education needs a refocus so that all learners reach their full potential

Until universities and employers look beyond traditional metrics, it will be difficult to break a circuit that favours, for the large part, middle class, socially and ethnically privileged candidates.

To truly break away from a millennia of elitist, selective systems , the approach needs to move from pure academics to a credit system that captures many more stories of learning. This new credit system should be known as a passport, meaning students have stamped it with the various competences such as lifelong learning and self-agency that they have developed throughout their learning (in an out of school), allowing them to be recognised on numerous different fronts.

A coalition of schools from every continent is working on this project, now seeking universities to sit around the table in order to bring this work to its conclusion. This would mean co-designing an elegant, life worthy transcript to allow more access to more children based on more expansive criteria.

• Peacebuilding
• Education inequality
• Women and girls
• Out of school children

Research Fellow Virology

Integrated Management of Invasive Pampas Grass for Enhanced Land Rehabilitation

Economics Editor

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services)